Little touches of Love
by Zenos12
Summary: A one-shot based on my other story, The Cursed story. It is of course, non-canon to that story and the actual books. I recommend reading that story before this one. Dedicated to my favorite user on this site, and the biggest fan of me. Hope you enjoy!


I had first met Zach one day at school. I had chemistry class, which was really not my best subject, seeing as how much of a klutz I am. So when I learned that we were doing a lab involving hydrochloric acid, I wasn't the happiest person in the class. And another negative part about it being a lab day is that I have no lab partner. My school was filled with mostly jocks and preps, so I had about zero friends. I looked so out of place with my 30 Seconds to Mars shirt and black jeans.

The first surprise of the day was that there was a new student called Zach Roberts or something like that. He looked like a decent kid, with semi-long brown hair for a guy, and slate gray eyes, like mine. He was wearing a gray shirt with a pair of black jeans and skater shoes. He had on this weird beaded necklace on, but other then that he looked normal. So he was probably a jock, I could tell by looking at his body.

Zach was partnered with me, and I really didn't like him at first. He was always smiling for some reason, and knew a lot about this lab. I was letting him do most of the work, while just making casual conversation with him. I was eventually warming up to him, but only because he let me drink all of his orange juice he had and when he offered me to hold the beaker full of acid over the Bunsen burner, I accepted. Turns out, I can't talk and hold dangerous liquids at the same time. So when the flame touched my hand and I jumped, the acid went flying over Zach. There you go, the best first impression of all time.

Later on, about a month, Zach and I had become more or less mutual friends. No one else really was friends with him, so I took him in. He was pretty cool, but didn't understand what somethings were, like iPods. I brought him home one day after school and my mom adored him. She showered him with muffins and poetry, which he weirdly accepted both. I apologized about all of it, but he didn't seem to mind. After he left to go home, my mom told me I should go out with I guy like him. I had to slowly explain to her that Zach was just a friend, but she didn't seem to understand

The next day Zach showed up at my house in like 11 o clock in the morning. He actually gets up at that hour, it's weird. He told me he wanted to show me something, so I begrudgingly threw on a hoodie and walked with him in pajama pants, all the way across town, to the local park. I loved the park, and Zach showed me this secret spot. It was a little clearing, completely hidden by pine trees, with just one bench there. He handed me a thermos of orange juice and we just sat there and talked for awhile. Over the next few months until I learned I was a demigod, we hung out there a lot, and eventually became inseparable.

A few days after our big Percy quest, Zach, Dmitri and I were told to go destroy this train full of highly illegal and dangerous monsters being shipped to Chicago. Probably one of the gods pranks. So we landed off our pegusi on top of the high speed train and went inside. One of the skeletons guarding the monsters decided it would be nice to just release a Manticore at us. So I got to fight it while Dmitri, our explosives specialist, was escorted to the front of the train carrying a shitload of Greek fire. I took care the Manticore, but that's when the explosion happened that changed my life.

Later on we figured that Dmitri bumped into on of the train carriages walls when it shook, and the Greek fire got loose. Dmitri was instantly killed, and Zach got knocked back and buried under all the rubble. The train crashed into the side of the country and all the monsters were loose now. I went all super demi god modes, making all the monsters die that were within my reach. After I killed the majority of the monsters and the rest scampered off to join whatever hell pit they came from, I was calling out Dmitri and Zach's name. Mostly Zach's though. I eventually saw a silver arm amidst all the rubble and pulled on it, revealing him to be really, severely burned. I tried healing his external wounds with my healing powers, but I was afraid there was something wrong with his lungs because he wasn't breathing right. I looked around and found Dmitri's charred skeleton, with only his camp necklace intact. I took the necklace and stuffed it in my pocket and whistled for a Pegasus.

In the next couple hours, a lot happened. Zach was put in a room in the big house and was examined by Chiron. He later came out to tell me that the Greek fire came into his throat, and totally screwed up his vocal cords. He would be lucky to even make intelligible sounds, rather then actually speaking. I was terrified by this…I felt like it was all my fault. I begged him to go on this mission with me since I thought Dmitri was a creep. Now he is dead and Zach is a mute. This sucks.

I refused to leave Zach's side in the next couple months, feeding him Nectar and ambrosia a couple times a day and taking my own meals in the room. Zach had so many visitors that I didn't even know knew him. Percy and Annabeth showed up a lot, talking to me about what happened. Percy told me a couple days after the incident the tasked the Hephaestus with making a safer version of Greek fire. It was kind of redundant, but I thanked him anyways. But the person who visited the most was Stefani. Not for Zach, who I jealously expected at first, but for me. Once you get to know her, she is actually really nice. She helped me through those rough couple months until Zach was walking around again. He still couldn't speak, but it was nice having him around.

Things went mostly the same. I told him all about my day, everyday. I had to take regular classes at camp, while he taught. It was hard for him, trying to teach the other campers about battle tactics when he couldn't speak, but he found ways around it. Every night, we would go into the woods and just sit together underneath our favorite tree, and I would tell him about my day, and he would make grunts or just little noises that I thought I knew what they meant. It wasn't the same as him having his voice. But it worked.

After awhile, Zach, Stefani and I became the best team to go on quests in the whole camp. We became almost in each others minds during battle, and we used each others abilities to the best extent. Us together led the camp into a new age of glory and prosperity. By the time it was time for me to leave camp, I had led over a dozen successful quests and participated in even more. The five people in my "grade" at the camp, if you will, all lined up to face Chiron. We each received a beaded bracelet with Camp Half-blood etched on it. After the partying, Zach and I found our special spot in the woods.

There, I begged Zach to go off with me. I had been planning to move to Los Angeles for months, to keep track of the monsters there for Chiron, and to try to make in big in the world. Actress, singer, whatever I could. But Zach just gave me one short grunt and shook his head. The amount of times I screamed and shouted at him to come with me, he only shook his head. All this time, I couldn't done all I did without him. I would've been dead hundreds of times without him watching my back.

Stefani eventually found me, beating my hand against Zach's chest, crying hard. The love of my life wouldn't follow me. Not be with me for the next step of my life. She eventually tugged me off of Zach and slapped me hard.

"Susanna, this is enough…Get over him. He died on the train. Let his soul be, you are just keeping him here. I've tried my best to keep you here…but you have to stay strong"

My eyes widened in fear as I looked to where Zach is. He gave me one tearful smile…I blinked and then he was gone…My guardian angel, my lover, my…soulmate. Gone.


End file.
